Who I Work With

I provide writing tutoring for students in New York and online, including:

• Middle school students building foundational writing skills

• High school students working on essays, Regents exams, and SAT/ACT prep

• College students needing help with papers and argument writing

I work best with students who are willing to think, try, and revise.

You might be someone who:

• Knows what you want to say, but can’t get it onto the page

• Writes essays that feel messy, unclear, or unfinished

• Gets feedback like “be more specific” or “explain more” and doesn’t know what that means

• Wants better grades—or just wants writing to feel less frustrating

I’ve worked with students across grade levels and backgrounds, including multilingual learners, struggling writers, and high-achieving students aiming to sharpen their voice.

What I Help With

✍️ Academic Writing

• Essays (ELA, history, humanities)

• Regents prep and school exams

• Argumentative and analytical writing

🧠 Structure & Clarity

• Building a strong thesis / “proposition”

• Organizing paragraphs

• Developing ideas with evidence

• Adding “hooks” between paragraphs

• Writing with flow and purpose

• Reverse outlining: What does this say? What does this do?

📚 Test Prep

• SAT / ACT reading and writing support

How I Teach

I’m not just here to fix papers.

I teach students how to think through their writing and give them the skills so they can do it on their own.

In a typical session, we:

• Start with some grounding breaths

• Read the work together

• Talk through what you’re trying to say and map it out

• Identify what’s working and what’s not

• Revise step by step

• Build tools you can use next time

Over time, students become more independent, more confident, and more clear.

My Approach

I come to this work as a teacher, a healer, and a storyteller.

My background is in zen meditation, qi gong, yoga, massage therapy and somatic experiencing; early childhood education, and high school english and history education. I believe people need to feel calm, safe, and connected in order to relax into the process of learning and growth. We need encouragement and love to access our highest-order thinking. I also believe writing isn’t just about grammar—it’s about offering up ideas, developing them, and inviting someone else to consider what you see. We write because we are social beings and have a need to share our perspective with others. Knowledge as a process only takes place in collaborative spaces.

I believe:

• Writing is thinking

• Confusion on the page usually means confusion in the idea

• Anyone can become a stronger writer with the right support

My goal isn’t just better essays. It’s helping students trust their own thinking.

What Students Gain

Students I’ve worked with have:

• Improved their grades and test performance

• Passed challenging exams

• Gotten into strong schools

• Felt more confident expressing their ideas

But more importantly, they leave with skills they can actually use—without needing me forever.

This is hands-on writing tutoring, not passive editing.

What a Session Looks Like

Sessions are collaborative and focused.

We might:

• Break down an assignment

• Outline an essay from scratch

• Reverse outline an essay already written - asking of each part: what does this say? what does it do?

• Revise a draft line by line

• Practice building arguments

• Work on clarity, sentence by sentence

No busywork. No fluff. Just real progress, step by step.

About Me

I’m a teacher and tutor based in New York, currently pursuing a Masters in Special Education at NYU, with years of experience working with students in classrooms and one-on-one settings. I’ve taught and tutored writing at multiple levels, including high school and college, and I’ve worked with a wide range of learners and learning styles.

My father, Dr. Kenneth Bruffee, taught writing at Brooklyn College for many years and wrote a book creatively named, “A Short Course in Writing.” Besides his meticulous attention to the questions, “What does this say?” and “What does this do?”, what has stayed with me is his insistence that the purpose of writing is to propose ideas and communicate them clearly to others, for their consideration. It wasn’t until I was working at one high school as a study hall monitor that I realized the genius in that simple, almost boring premise.

A freshman girl—let’s call her Alice—was struggling to get started on an english paper on Octavia Butler’s short story, Bloodchild. I came over to her, and asked her to tell me the story of it out loud. She gave me a synopsis, and having confirmed that she had an understanding of the story, I asked: “Do you know why we write?” She frowned, and shook her head. Then I said, “Why do this at all? We write so that others can consider and understand our point of view, and for no other reason.” Alice’s eyes widened a bit, and said, “oh, yea okay, that makes sense!” I then asked her: “what’s your favorite tv show?” Suddenly she lit up.

“The Kardashians.”
”Who’s your favorite Kardashian?”
”Khloe.”
”Why is Khloe your favorite Kardashian?” I held up my hand. “Give me three reasons, right now.”
”She’s the prettiest, she has the best clothes, and she’s the nicest out of all the sisters.”

“See? You already know how to write! You just gave me a proposition, and three pieces of supporting evidence just like that, and I have no doubt that if I asked you to develop each separate point that you made, you would have an overflowing fountain of material to work with.”

We then got to work on her essay on Bloodchild, and she not only received higher marks but came away feeling more confident in her writing and in her understanding of the process.

At another school, a student in their junior year—let’s call them Grace—was confused about an economics assignment. Part of the task was to write about a real world example of a small business facing financial hardship. They wrote a paragraph, and then brought it to me. I began taking them through the process of asking, “what do these sentences say? what do they do?” As we reversed-outlined their writing, I could see their mind getting clearer, too. We edited the paragraph based on what we found, and followed up with another check: what do these say? what do they do? I turned to Grace and asked them, “How do you feel about this writing?” They smiled and said, “It makes so much more sense now! And, now I understand why it makes sense.”

Get Started:

If you’re searching for a writing tutor near or in NYC, New Jersey or Long Island,
I offer both in-person sessions and online sessions as needed.
If you’re interested in working together, please reach out!

We can talk about what you need, what you’re working on, and whether it feels like a good fit.

60 minutes: $180

90 minutes: $270

Sliding scale is available upon request for those who have need.